16 Facts About Silenus

1.

In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus.

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2.

Silenus presides over other daemones and is related to musical creativity, prophetic ecstasy, drunken joy, drunken dances and gestures.

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3.

Original Silenus resembled a folkloric man of the forest, with the ears of a horse and sometimes the tail and legs of a horse.

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4.

Silenus was described as the oldest, wisest and most drunken of the followers of Dionysus, and was said in Orphic hymns to be the young god's tutor.

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5.

When intoxicated, Silenus was said to possess special knowledge and the power of prophecy.

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6.

The Phrygian King Midas was eager to learn from Silenus and caught the old man by lacing a fountain with wine from which Silenus often drank.

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7.

An alternative story was that when lost and wandering in Phrygia, Silenus was rescued by peasants and taken to Midas, who treated him kindly.

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8.

In return for Midas' hospitality Silenus told him some tales and the king, enchanted by Silenus' fictions, entertained him for five days and nights.

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9.

In Euripides's satyr play Cyclops, Silenus is stranded with the satyrs in Sicily, where they have been enslaved by the Cyclopes.

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10.

Silenus refers to the satyrs as his children during the play.

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11.

Bacchus pours out wine for a panther, while Silenus plays the lyre, painting from Boscoreale, Campania, c .

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12.

Papposilenus is a representation of Silenus that emphasizes his old age, particularly as a stock character in satyr play or comedy.

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13.

Silenus's costuming includes a body stocking tufted with hair that seems to have come into use in the mid-5th century BC.

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14.

Silenus' wisdom appears in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, who endorsed this famous dictum.

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15.

Professor Silenus is a character in Evelyn Waugh's first novel, Decline and Fall.

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16.

Silenus is one of the two main characters in Tony Harrison's 1990 satyr play The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, partly based on Sophocles' play Ichneutae .

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